As the peak of spring standardized exam season nears, parents, students, teachers, superintendents, school board members, and state officials are escalating campaigns to stop testing overuse and misuse. Once again this week, testing resistance and reform stories come from more than half the 50 states demonstrating the breadth and depth of the national movement.

Hundreds of students have declined to take the controversial PARCC exam at two northwest suburban high schools, multiple sources said.

At Rolling Meadows High School, less than three dozen students out of more than 400 members of the junior class sat for the test Thursday, according to several people from the school, including students and school officials.

At Arlington Heights‘ John Hersey High School, also part of Township High School District 214, a significant number of students also declined to take the exam, said Dan Petro, a school board member and Hersey parent.

District spokeswoman Jennifer Delgado could not say how many students opted out of the test. But she said a “large amount” of students at Rolling Meadows High did not take the exam, the most within the district’s six high schools.